OPEN BETA/COMMUNITY PROJECT: OSM World

[AndyPaul 11]

Hey Mario,

 

are you aware of the NaturalEarthData website, that provides vectors for urban areas, amongst others? Its public domain derived from MODIS interpretations. I dont know how much of it is already on OSM but if not it could save you processing all the buildings for Europe.

 

http://www.naturalearthdata.com

http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/ (scroll down for urban areas)

 

Cheers,

Andreas

Forgot to add: It could also save us from processing all the buildings! ;-)

Just had a look at the urban areas and they are way way way to coarse and would be a step backwards compared to OSM.

[Mariopilot 9]

Hi!

 

That data is at 0.5Km resolution. Better use it for land class instead of vector data...

Anyway I am not going to process the buildings, they are GIGABYTES worth of data and a single QGIS instance does not process a big country like france in humanely reasonable time (I wish it did)!

 

I guess we will stick with the current urban area algorythm apart ramping it up to maybe more varied textures... that is the only point left before release of the first block now

[AndyPaul 11]

That reminds me: What textures are you using for the cities in southern Europe? Dry or wet?

[Mariopilot 9]

I am using dry non-grid medium and urban hirise. Opted for those because these are city polygons where small green areas theoretically are not included.... however if Y opt for 4 texture types, I may add dry small non-grid and another probably wet....

[AndyPaul 11]

Hey there,

 

how's the guide coming along? I just noticed that there almost no data (except for rivers) included for the UK and Ireland? Is that intended or simply not done (yet).

 

Also, making landclass for FS2004 su**s ... pfff ;-)

[Mariopilot 9]

Hmm...I'llcheck that out, but in theory, everything is there! There were some coastlines in UK that proved a major PITA...

I'm getting a BLN exporter plugin almost ready, so to include in the guide... also I'll try to include a ring separator plugin that will save layer without rings in one place, and rings in another, I may just call it "Divorce", as it gets rid of the rings

[ematheson 19]

I'm confident that other free data sources can be found to fill in the holes or gaps in the osm data set. In the us, we have huge amounts of free gis data available from individual states, the national map, and the census bureau... I'll bet that similar resources exist for most places in western Europe. Of course, osm data is probably more accurate where it exists than most free datasets are, but holes can easily be filled.

[AndyPaul 11]

Lol @Divorce, nice idea!

 

For the UK and Ireland, the only .bgl's I have are in OSM World 7 Waterbodies A and OSM World 8 Waterbodies B. Otherwise nothing to be found except for the coastlines.

 

Also, landclass in the UK and Ireland is screwed up somehow despite the fact that mine is above OSM World (I have the one from Taburet I think).

[AndyPaul 11]

Ok, so I tried to get the 3rd party landclass to work in the UK and Ireland but it wont show up, even without OSM World. Very very strange...

 

Might be related to the deactivated .bgls from the scenery/world folder.

[Mariopilot 9]

So yes, UK and Ireland are missing! Excellent find! I did not know in what of the four quadrants the data will go and left it for later. Ultimately, no folder was there and I forgot to process the data

I will process them as the very next thing I do, and take the opportunity to try out landpolys with 4 texture types

I do not understand why landclass is not working there... may check it out! maybe something is amiss with the OSM World masking landclass...

[AndyPaul 11]

So yes, UK and Ireland are missing! Excellent find! I did not know in what of the four quadrants the data will go and left it for later. Ultimately, no folder was there and I forgot to process the data

I will process them as the very next thing I do, and take the opportunity to try out landpolys with 4 texture types

I do not understand why landclass is not working there... may check it out! maybe something is amiss with the OSM World masking landclass...

 

Ah great, happy to help! I am also looking forward to the guide so that I can start with Asia or Eastern Europe. ;-)

 

I don't know if something that has been deactivated can prevent landclass from working. Other addon landclasses for e.g. Germany or Denmark work fine. I am at a loss here, no idea whatsover.

[Mariopilot 9]

We'll see! maybe the missing VTP stuff is making it go insane...who knows

[Mariopilot 9]

For Crying out loud! Even lakes are missing in the southeastern UK! This is going to take a while

[Mariopilot 9]

Allright! Good news is that this setback on British areas is letting me take detailed note of what I do for a good how-to guide. I have figured out how to make this scenery along the way, so I did not have everything noted down... also I managed to get rid of the need for SBuilderX and SCenProc, both used for trivial tasks. It can all be done in QGIS now! it appears that using "v.buffer.distance" removes rings (holes), something I had ScenProc doing before. Also, SBuilderX was there only to convert shapefiles to BLN files that could be loaded in SBuilder, but now I scripted a converter for QGIS.

Also I think that AndyPaul may want to get the BLN exporter for QGIS 2.x here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pptriyawsk1cu7m/BLN%20Exporter.zip?dl=0

[AndyPaul 11]

Allright! Good news is that this setback on British areas is letting me take detailed note of what I do for a good how-to guide. I have figured out how to make this scenery along the way, so I did not have everything noted down... also I managed to get rid of the need for SBuilderX and SCenProc, both used for trivial tasks. It can all be done in QGIS now! it appears that using "v.buffer.distance" removes rings (holes), something I had ScenProc doing before. Also, SBuilderX was there only to convert shapefiles to BLN files that could be loaded in SBuilder, but now I scripted a converter for QGIS.

Also I think that AndyPaul may want to get the BLN exporter for QGIS 2.x here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pptriyawsk1cu7m/BLN%20Exporter.zip?dl=0

 

Thanks for the exporter, will give it a try soon! I am curious if the absence of VTPs would prevent an addon landclass from working ... hence, looking forward to the UK and Ireland!